For bakery products, particularly bread, prevention of staleness of the products during storage has been attempted, and addition of an emulsifier and a thickener made of polysaccharides has been examined.
Conventionally, various techniques of preventing the staleness of bakery products by only the emulsifier have been proposed. However, when only the emulsifier is used to exhibit an staleness-preventing effect, the emulsifier should be added in a large amount. As a result, a certain staleness-preventing effect can be obtained, but because there is excess flavor, etc. of the emulsifier itself added in excess, the flavor and feel when eating of the resulting bread are not excellent.
As conventional techniques of using a thickener made of polysaccharides, there have been proposed techniques of using a thickener by dispersing it in a powdery form in wheat flour, etc. (JP-A 63-248333, JP-A 1-257422, JP-A 2002-291396) and techniques of using a composition having a natural gum substance and glycerin fatty ester compounded in a predetermined ratio (JP-A 63-71133), techniques of using a composition containing gum substance/starch substance/protein to which edible fats and oils are partially added (JP-A 60-160833).
To solve the problem described above, on the other hand, there are proposed techniques of dispersing a thickener in a fat and oil composition containing a water-in-oil emulsified composition (JP-A 58-183030, JP-A 64-63337, JP-A 2-171136, JP-A 6-22690).